When it comes to blockchain, the times — and implementation approaches — have changed. And quickly.

“Two years ago, I spent most of mytime trying to convince clients to useblockchain,” jokes Eric Piscini, theleader of Deloitte’s digital transforma-tion and innovation offerings in the fi-nancial services space. “Today, I spendmost of my time trying to convince cli-ents not to use blockchain.”Piscini’s underlying point — thatbanks should proceed thoughtfullywhen testing and implementing block-chain applications — is serious andshared by other consultants. A recentHarvard Business Review (HBR) arti-cle, “The Truth About Blockchain,” laysout the case that blockchain adoptionwill “take years” to play out along a pre-dictable and gradual journey becauseit represents a foundational technolo-gy rather than a disruptive technology.

“Most of what’s going on now withblockchain involves smaller, moremeasured implementations,” saysKeystone Strategy Chairman MarcoIansiti, who is also the David SarnoffProfessor of Business AdministrationUnit Head of Technology and Opera-tions Management at Harvard Busi-ness School — and the co-author of theHBR blockchain article. “Blockchaininitiatives that include a small numberof partners within a private chain seemto be working well.” While Iansiti re-mains enthusiastic about blockchain’sability to transform banking, otherbusinesses and the public sector, hebelieves that this revolution will take“many years” to unfold.

When descriptions like “measured”
and “gradual” are used to describe the
technologies driving transformation,
it speaks well of companies’ commitments to these fundamental changes.
When banking consultants discuss
largescale transformation projects,
they typically spend more time talking about legacy systems, back-office
process and the customer experience
than they do about mind-bending technological implementations.

While technology plays a crucial
role in driving and enabling the digital
transformation of retail banks, those
advancements likely to deliver the
greatest impact over the short-term
sound fairly familiar.

ALM Intelligence Associate Director,
Lead for Digital Consulting Research
Brendan Williams points to the impact
of the data analytics embedded in new
forms of automation. “These analytics
help humans make better decisions,”
he adds. “Analytics are being applied
in a lot of interesting areas, including
fraud-detection for insurance claims.
The algorithms are surprisingly good at
detecting the patterns behind legitimate
claims, and flagging examples that deviate from those patterns.” —E.K.